HOW LIMITED IS YOUR IDENTITY?

When you face a major change in your life—retirement, losing your job, your kids leaving for college, or an unexpected accident—you quickly discover that a large part of who you think you are (your identity) was invested in something or someone that is no longer there.

Who are you now without your former activities and relationships?

You, or who you thought you were, must change to fit into a new world, a new job, and an entirely new daily scheduled.

Beware of what follows “I am” because that’s where you place your identity and limit your sense of self. Keep your identity eggs—like your investments—in several baskets, never in just one. You could say that the only thing that needs to follow “I am” is a period; as in “I am.” “I am here; I exist and I refuse to be defined by a limited identity.” To be resilient during the inevitable changes of life, your identity must be more than your job title, your roles in the lives of others, and much more than who you think you are. You are more than who you think you are. That is, you are more than your conscious mind and it’s limited identity.

What do you need to know about maintaining a robust, resilient identity? _________________________________________________